The Order of St. George

Order of St. George
Information
Status	Active
Leader(s)	The Dragon King
Purpose	Monster hunting

We are the keepers of the great secret. Evil walks this world, preying on those pure of heart enough to perceive it. That evil must be hunted and eliminated from the face of the Earth. We are those hunters, fortified by the rituals of our forebearers. In the name of St. George, we will protect the innocent.

—Order Declaration , supposedly by St. George himself, Book of Butcher

The Order of St. George is an ancient and secret order that has forged ruthless monster hunters for generations.

There are six different masks in each house anywhere in the world. Black, White (or "Alabaster" in Europe), Azure, Red, Silver and Green.

History

For there will always be monsters, and so there must always be those who hunt.

— , Book of Butcher

Monsters have always existed, taking form from different types of fears and consuming the humans that call it forth. The Order was created in order to fight said monsters, and keep their existence secret from the world at large to prevent more fear causing the monsters to overrun them. The Order was founded by the titular Saint George, who slew a Dragon and declared his intention to train monster-slayers.

St. George recognized that he had to drive a sanctified nail of gold through his skull in order to see the Dragon, so he did so and smelted it in place, giving him the ability to see monsters. The gold used for all members of the order is said to come from the horde of the original dragon he then proceeded to slay. Once he did, it is said that he used its blood to pen the Order's declaration. He would then dedicate the rest of his life to training more hunters in order to protect the innocent. He would eventually be martyred for his belief in monsters, leading his four apostles to take control and continue his mission: Demetrius, Maurice, Theodore and Mercurius. The four would write the laws, perfect the initial hunting methods, and recruit future hunters.

The Order is able to utilize different parts of deceased Monsters. Writing in the blood of monsters causes said writing to only be viewed by children or those who have passed the Final Sacrament, giving the Order a way to write without the outside world viewing their secrets. They also use leather and skin from the monsters to bind their books, rendering them completely invisible to the un-initiated. Monster teeth, horns and claws are often fashioned into weaponry and trinkets. Dragons were once expected to eat the heart of the Dracotypes they slayed, but the practice has since been abolished. The House of Blood was initially the most major export of monster parts, but following its destruction, the House of Boucher has taken over that post.

The organization's most ancient tradition is the keeping of the totem, and the binding of the monster inside to the hunter who keeps it. Originally, the monsters who orphaned said children would be the ones bound to totems, but this process left many children incapable of passing the First Sacrament without dying, so lesser monsters were eventually bred and used.

For a hundred years, the Order operated solely out of Tripoli, Libya. As more Dragons began appearing in farther and father places, the Order made the decision to increase and colonize as part of the Great Expansion. Two twin brothers, rumored to be descendants of Demetrius, named Marcus and Titus, were raised in the House under all Mask colors. The two of them were sent out in the Expansion, and slew seven Great Beasts through Western Europe before separating at a crossroad. Marcus would then establish the House of Cutter in England, while Titus would create the House of Carnage.

During these expansions across the European, African and Asian continents, other monster-hunting organizations would often be encountered. The Order, believing that structure and surveillance was necessary to maintaining safety, were told to assimilate these organizations into the Order, or eliminate every practicing member for eventual replacement. The "missionaries" would carefully learn from the indigenous monster hunters, gain their trust, and then offer to join them with the Order. Any group that refused was to be immediately killed. These practices caused the Order several problems as they traveled across Asia, which had multiple monster-hunting organizations almost as powerful as them; some hunters even switched sides, abandoning the Order for these other hunters. The Order eventually was able to assimilate Houses in Japan and India after several decades, while China and Korea's hunters had to be completely wiped out. Despite these centuries of preventative measures, by the early 2020s there still existed "homegrown alternatives" in China, Africa and South America.

The Second Great Expansion would occur in the 1600s, as many European countries tried to colonize America. Every house in Europe sent hunters, though Carnage and Cutter would have the most prominence in later years.

While the House of Blood was established in New York upon the arrival of Brutus and Samuel Cutter, Samuel would abandon the colony after witnessing the violence committed against the native peoples, and eventually found the House of Slaughter in Chicago. Despite his journal detailing his motives, his reasons for leaving the House of Blood would be widely reported as "unknown" within the organization. Due to his allyship with the indigenous population, who he trained within the House of Slaughter, he would cut all communication with the House of Cutter, causing them to spitefully funnel resources into the House of Blood. However, as he did not cut ties with the Order altogether, the Great House would allow him to operate as he saw fit.

Settlers sent by Carnage would eventually establish the House of Boucher in New Orleans, which would become a "melting pot of cultures" faster than any other house, with both French and Spanish influences as well as high indigenous and Black populations.

In the eighteenth century, Scarlet Masks managed to formalize the nomenclature and hierarchy of monsters. It is rumored that this is what inspired Carolus Linnaeus to do the same for natural animals.

In the early twentieth century (sometime between the World Wars). The mysterious destruction of the House of Blood would cause Slaughter and Boucher would divide territory and duties. As Slaughter took most of the remaining Blood hunters, they grew faster than their sister House.

Mark of the Order

The Mark of St. George.

The Mark of the Order is given to any and all members of the Order of St. George. It is tattooed onto their bodies, though they are able to choose where they want it to be put. As each apprentice grows, the mark is re-applied in order to assert its place in their life. The mark shows a dying dragon, recoiling in the shape of a "U," with its claws outstretched in pain and mouth open. Three lines are drawn through the dragon, with one through the center and the other two forming an "X" over it.

The Tournament of Teeth

Main article: The Tournament of Teeth

In hopes of maintaining unity among all the Houses, despite their geographical division, the Order would establish a semi-Olympics for their hunters. Every five years, the Houses compete in games and challenges, with a different host each event and different events for each mask type. This would also include the Gathering of Dragons, where all Dragons would come together to exchange culture and intelligence. Attendance is considered to be one of the greatest honors a hunter may ever achieve.

Organization

Selection and training

The teeth signify that the young hunter has learned the most important tenet of the Order of St. George: to hunt monsters, one must become a monster.

— , Book of Slaughter

In the early days of the Order, only child survivors of monster attacks would be selected as initiates into the Order. With those children becoming an increasing rarity, the Order expanded to take in orphaned children who "have a coldness to them, so that they will not be needlessly burdened by the death they must witness." Once selected, the children must select a totem from an item that they have loved, with that emotion protecting the hunter from the monster that must be placed inside. Each child is then put under the First Sacrament, The Sacrament of Initiation. The child will abandon their family name and swear themselves solely to the order. They are then put into a trance with a selected monster– usually grown on farms by Azures– which will attempt to escape the binding. If it succeeds, the bond will be broken and the monster will eat the child; if the child succeeds, it will turn the monster to a Phantasmatype, trap them, and forever link them to the child. It is noted that children who pass this challenge will proceed to have eerie, glowing eyes. Following their survival, the inductee is tattooed with the Mark of the Order, marking them as a member for life.

All recruits will train as hunters, either under a blank Black or White mask, depending on which hunter recruited them. Everyone trains in weaponry, hand-to-hand combat, battle strategy, and connectivity with their totem. After several years, these hunters-in-training will go through the Second Sacrament of St. George, The Sacrament of the Hunt. The inductees must kill a wild monster without the help of their superiors. This sacrament has varying difficulty; as White Masks do it together, they find this the easiest to complete, while Black Masks work alone, and thus can be easily killed if not prepared. After killing a fully-formed monster, their hunter is given a new mask with teeth, and given the status of Apprentice under a specific hunter. They will apprentice even while continuing their training in the House, often being called out to assist their superior or to accomplish day-to-day work.

On the edge of adulthood, the recruits will start to lose the ability to see monsters; this happens at different ages depending on the person. At first, they will start to lose the ability to see them in full, only viewing ghostly apparitions that seem like shadows. As they grow older, they will have trouble holding them in their mind, and may forget seeing them all together. This leads to the Third Sacrament of St. George, The Blind Hunt, which is the most deadly of them all. Once the apprentice can no longer see a monster nor hear their totem, they must hunt and kill a monster alone. This brutal graduation often scars its survivors. If an apprentice does not wish to partake in the Blind Hunt or wishes to assist the Order in ways that do not involve field work, they may forswear their life as a hunter and begin training as a Scarlet or Azure Mask. Whether they pass or choose to live as a Scarlet or Azure, the apprentice will then go through the Final Sacrament of St. George, The Sacrament of Trepanation. This re-opens the mind to what it could perceive in its youth.

Those who pass the Blind Hunt will proceed to become full Hunters of the Order. If a hunter wishes to switch mask colors, they have to have the consent of the Heads of the Mask they serve under and the one they wish to transfer to, and then must retrain as an Apprentice. When this apprenticeship is finished, their gold nail will be removed, and they must survive the Blind Hunt a second time. Some more exceptional hunters can train to become Silver or Emerald Masks, which usually involves more study and training to the Great House.

Leadership

Each House has at least one Dragon as their head, who oversees a council consisting of the monster senior member of each branch of the house. While seniority is a primary judge of who joins, sometimes exceptional members can be approved over their seniors if agreed upon by the rest of the council. Once every ten years, the Dragons of all Houses meet at the Great House to council with the Dragon King. While much of the Dragon King and his Violet Masks' work is unknown, it is said that most of the Dragon King's time is spent praying in the tomb of St. George.

Houses

The Congregation of Houses as of the 2020s.

Each House within the Order oversees a specific geographic region, as determined by the Great House. They are responsible for killing monsters and keeping their secrets within their territory; failure can cause a revocation of a House charter and relocation or exile of their members. Each House is permitted to develop its own rites and customs, as long as it holds to the three sacraments and fulfills its responsibilities.

Marked Houses are known to be in:

• Africa
  • The Great House of St. George: Tripoli, Libya. Members are given the surname Saint-Georges.
  • Unnamed Cairo House: Cairo, Egypt.
  • Unnamed Capetown House: Capetown, South Africa.
• North America
  • House of Blood: New York City, United States of America. This House has been eliminated and no longer practices.
  • House of Butcher: New Orleans, United States of America.
  • House of Slaughter: Chicago, United States of America.
• Central/South America
  • Unnamed Buenos Aires House: Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  • Unnamed Mexican House: unknown location.
  • Unnamed Panama City House: Panama City, Panama.
  • Unnamed Lima House: Lima, Peru.
• Asia
  • Unnamed Hong Kong House: Hong Kong.
  • Unnamed Kolkata House: Kolkata, India.
  • Unnamed Mumbai House: Mumbai, India.
  • Unnamed Nagasaki House: Nagasaki, Japan.
  • Unnamed Singapore House: Singapore.
• Europe
  • House of Cutter: London, England.
  • House of Carnage: Paris, France.
  • Unnamed Berlin House: Berlin, Germany.
  • Unnamed Galway House: Galway, Ireland.
  • Unnamed Rome House: Rome, Italy.
  • Unnamed St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg, Russia.
  • Unnamed Madrid House: Madrid, Spain.
  • Unnamed Istanbul House: Istanbul, Turkey.
• Oceania
  • Unnamed Sydney House: Sydney, Australia.

Cecilia Slaughter wishes to introduce Houses of Slaughter to San Francisco, California; Washington, D.C.; Seoul, Korea; and Dubai, UAE; and Houses of Boucher to Mexico City or São Paulo, Brazil. She has been given tentative permission once she reaches the position of House Dragon, in exchange for Erica Slaughter's transfer to the Great House.

Masks

Each description is sourced from The Book of Slaughter; extra information can be seen on their specific pages.

• White Mask: White Masks are typically the largest branch of each House, requiring the most recruits. They are pack hunters, trained to work together as a unit to bring down the largest monsters the Order faces in its work.
  • Alabaster Mask: The precursor to the White Mask and more common in other continents, though it was also utilized in the extinct New York house.
• Black Mask: Black Masks are the lone hunters of the Order of St. George. They are trained to be self-sufficient in the field, capable of taking down a monster without House assistance. The training is more rigorous, lonely work, and the heads of the Black Mask branch work diligently to only pick those suited to the solitary life required of them.
• Scarlet Mask: Scarlet Masks are the keepers of their House and its records. They make sure the House is kept in pristine condition, feeding its hunters, washing their clothes, cleaning their rooms. They also oversee the library of each House, recording each hunter's missions, and documenting the different classes of monsters the hunters face in their work, so that the House can learn from its past mistakes and rise above them into the future. They write in the blood of monsters so that only members of the Order can read their work. The majority of those who decide not to participate in the Blind Hunt become Scarlet Masks.
• Azure Mask: Azure Masks are the weaponeers of the Order. In ancient times, they crafted the tools by which hunters would hunt and kill the monsters they faced in the wild. In modern times, where acquiring deadly weapons is not a matter of great difficulty, the Azure Masks have become the spymasters of the Order. It is their duty above all others to prevent the wider world from learning of the existence of monsters and the machinations of the Order of St. George. They infiltrate law enforcement, politics, and news organizations at their highest levels, keeping our great secrets intact.
• Silver Mask: Silver Masks are the specialist hunters of the Order of St. George. They must study years of folklore in all its facets to determine from which belief structure their target was manifested. In ancient times, the Silver Masks were a larger aspect of the Order, as larger percentages of the population believed in specific types of monsters: vampires, werewolves, changelings, and all manner of dark creatures. As these monsters were supplanted by rawer, amorphous monsters, formed by baser fears, the Silver Masks' work became less plentiful, and fewer hunters made the decision to rise up to this position. As it stands, each House must have at least two Silver Masks – a master an an apprentice – to keep the tradition alive.
• Emerald Mask: Emerald Masks are the highest class of monster hunter within the Order of St. George, and require the most training. They are the dragon hunters, following in the steps of the Founder of the Order, St. George. There are two ways to earn an Emerald Mask: one requires being chosen to train as a Silver Mask, rising to the status of Master at that rank, and then undergoing years of training at the Great House of St. George; the other requires finding and killing a dragon in the wild. Dragons are born from mankind's most primal and powerful emotions, and most form in societies with a deep cultural belief in dragons. There are few dragons left in the world today, and even fewer Emerald Masks.
• Violet Mask: The Dragon King does not leave the Great House of St. George, and instead sends his emissaries to enforce his rule among the Congregation of Houses. His emissaries are masked in violet, and are sent to oversee the transition between Dragons, resolve territorial disputes between Houses, and to revoke House charters. The requirements to become a Violet Mask are shrouded in secrecy, and it is said that they know the answers to some of the most fundamental truths that underlie our organization's great work. In any case, it is known that they are all extremely dangerous.
• The Dragon / Gold Mask: In the early days of the Order, only members of the Order of St. George who achieved the status of Emerald Mask were given the sanction to start their own House, and take the title of Dragon. If the central tenet of the Order of St. George is that one most become a monster to hunt monsters, it followed that only one who has killed dragons could take the title of Dragon. In the modern age, the rules of have loosened. Upon the death of a House's leader, the council puts forth a name from within their ranks of who they see fit to rule them. If granted the role by the emissaries of the Great House of St. George, they rise to the station of Gold Mask, and are bestowed the title of Dragon.
• The Dragon King: The spiritual leader of the Order of St. George, and the head of the Great House of St. George. His will is law within our Order, and his decisions dictate the continuation of our deepest traditions. The Dragon King is selected by the heads of the Congregation of Houses upon the death of the previous Dragon King. He is the keeper of St. George's history, and we do our work in solemn tribute to his glorious mission.

Gallery

Something Is Killing the Children #38 variant cover by Andrew K. Curry

Page in the Book of Cutter.

Map of Houses.

The House of Slaughter's Council in the 2020s.